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Gamasutra Podcast Transcript - Game Reviews Roundtable
Kasavin: You're referring to uppity people on message boards or something like that? Vederman: Yeah. Davison: They're just a vocal minority, but I think a lot of people... they may have seen a preview, or they saw a video, or they saw something, and go, "Ah, that looks like exactly the kind of thing I want!" And they've decided already that they want to love it, so anything that contradicts that love is essentially someone publicly saying, "Hey, you're stupid." Vederman: Right. Kasavin: "Your love for this game is unwarranted, and you're wasting your time." Davison: So we experimented around that with CGW, before we morphed it into the Games for Windows book, because the people that like PC games, they claim that they really want to dig into stuff, and they want to read stuff, and we're like, "OK. We're going to experiment with something. We're going to try and editorialize the aggregation process and just keep numbers out of it, except in context." And people hated it! Vederman: Yep. Kasavin: Yeah. Davison: You take a number off, ultimately - particularly the vocal minority - all they really care about is the number. Vederman: They do, and what was surprising about that was, I felt... as I watched that go down from the sidelines, listening to Jeff post on Quarter to Three, I just felt like this was one of those cases where - and I think we're all guilty of it - sometimes we put too much trust in what the people online are saying. Not our readers, but the people on message boards and on forums. I don't think the medium is ready to be scoreless. I don't think we've attained that level of journalistic... I don't know what you want to call it, but we're just not there yet. Kasavin: I think that's a good thing, and I hope that day doesn't come. I like review scores; I think they're valuable. I think one of the differences between, say, video game reviews and film reviews is that video game reviews still hold real value. People actually use game reviews to decide what to buy, though perhaps less so now more than before. The reason people need those scores is because they don't necessarily have the time or inclination to read one thousand, two thousand words about a game. And my philosophy at GameSpot has always been, "That's fine." The review's going to give you as much or as little information as you want. You start reading from the top, you can get a couple of sentences in and get most of it right there, but you can read two thousand words in and get into some actual details. You know, if you don't like the score, then ignore it. Vederman: That's what we thought. We sort of felt like CGW was penalizing its readers. They were removing information and making it harder to get at; if they wanted something quickly, they were being told that they were, basically... they weren't the CGW reader. Like, "If you're not willing to invest the time to hear what we have to say, to get into the meat and potatoes of what we really think of a game, then we don't care about you," is how we sort of interpreted it. And we thought that was wrong, and I was actually... because, I mean, this is a very small industry, and we're all buddies, and I'm close with Darren Gladstone, and I like Jeff a lot. So when Games for Windows came out, and scores came back, I was actually really happy, because I think it was the right move. I think this medium needs scores. Davison: Well, that's the thing. I mean, from my perspective... we wanted to try it. You know? Vederman: Yes. Davison: And just see what would happen, because every year, there's always the, "Oh, where is writing about games going, and when is it going to grow up, and when is it going to mature?" So it was like, "All right. Let's see. If any of the readers of any of our properties are going to be able to handle something new, it's probably the PC gamers, because they're older, and we hope they're a little more mature about it." But when it does come down to it, and you say, "OK, let's just try writing about the games, and see how you take to that," and it was just - oh, my God. It was unbelievably negative. Kasavin: It must be somehow satisfying to have conducted the experiment, so it's kind of like, now you know, at least. Davison: Mmm-hmm. Kasavin: Because it's true - I mean, up until now, it's been one of those things that has definitely come up pretty often, this type of conversation, both internally at publications and also just on message boards and what have you. You know, among those who care about this stuff. Davison: Right. Kasavin: And it's like, well, the theory and the practice aren't necessarily exactly aligned. Davison: Right, and now I know, when I read yet another one of these pseudo-intellectual masturbation pieces about games journalism, I have proof that they're talking out of their asses. Vederman: [laughing] Yeah, you've tried it! You know it! We've had the same conversations, obviously. It's struck me, for quite a while, that it's much ado about nothing. I've never once... I mean, we - as, I'm sure, both of you guys - get hundreds, thousands of emails a week, and not one of those people has ever said, "You know, I wish you guys were giving me less information. I wish you'd just drop the scores, because I really don't want the scores, and I really don't want the little highs, lows, and bottom line, like in a nice little tasty morsel at the bottom there, where I can easily digest it. I don't want that. Please remove that." Nobody does that. What it is, is it's pressure from journalists internally. It's like, a lot of us, for some reason, want to move into this Rolling Stone era of games journalism, which is ridiculous. |
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